file

NAME

file - determine the type of a file by examining its contents

SYNOPSIS

/usr/ucb/file [-fffile] [-cL] [-mmfile] filename...

DESCRIPTION

file performs a series of tests on each filename in an attempt to determine what it contains. If the contents of a file appear to be ASCII text, file examines the first 512 bytes and tries to guess its language.

file uses the file /etc/magic to identify files that have some sort of magic number, that is, any file containing a numeric or string
constant that indicates its type.

OPTIONS

-c
Check for format errors in the magic number file. For reasons of efficiency, this validation is
not normally carried out. No file type-checking is done under -c.

-fffile
Get a list of filenames to identify from ffile.

-L
If a file is a symbolic link, test the file the link references rather than the link itself.

-m mfile
Use mfile as the name of an alternate magic number file.

EXAMPLES

Example 1: Using file on all the files in a specific user's directory.

This example illustrates the use of file on all the files in a specific user's directory:

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The environment variables LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default control the character classification throughout file. On entry to file, these environment variables are checked in the following order: LC_CTYPE, LANG, and LC_default. When a valid value is found, remaining environment
variables for character classification are ignored. For example, a new setting for LANG does not override the current valid character classification rules of LC_CTYPE. When
none of the values is valid, the shell character classification defaults to the POSIX.1 "C" locale.